Lena’s hand lingered a half-second too long.
The note passed between them in the middle of the shift, palm to palm, and in that half-second Adriana felt eyes land on the two of them.
One of the dancers, maybe.
The bartender.
She laughed before she thought about it and turned the pass into a quick hug.
“Aw, you remembered.
You didn’t have to.”
“Course I did.” Lena didn’t miss a beat, loud enough to carry.
“Twenty years I been forgetting my own sister’s birthday.
Not yours, though.
Buy yourself something nice.”
“You’re too good to me.”
“Somebody’s gotta be.” And under it, quiet, only for her: “Bathroom’s clear if you need a minute.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sure you are, honey.”
“I am, Lena.
Really.”
“Okay.
You are.” Lena said it the way you agree with someone you don’t believe, easy and unbothered, and moved off toward the register before it could become a conversation the room noticed.
The moment passed.
It always passed.
That was the thing.
Every near-miss passed and she was still alive and Chris knew.
The note was in her bra now.
She’d read it twelve times, knew it by heart, I know.
Don’t say anything.
You aren’t alone, and she kept reading it anyway, hunting for a hidden layer, a secret instruction, a guarantee the words were real.
Someone else knew.
She slid into the booth and watched the front door and tried to remember what it felt like to not carry a secret.
The answer sat far off, a room she’d lived in once and could no longer picture.
The Crazy Horse was slow for a Tuesday.
A few men at the bar.
The regulars in their seats.
Empty stage, afternoon light coming through the blinds in stripes across the floor.
The bass hummed up through the floorboards, a vibration she’d tuned out months ago.
Stale beer and perfume.
She touched the note through her shirt.
The paper had gone soft from handling.
Fourteen months.
Fourteen months of waking up and putting on the wire.
Of watching every word, every look, every pause.
Of lying to Chris, to Tony, to everyone who’d ever loved her, and doing it so well none of them saw.
She’d learned to smile with a machine taped to her ribs.
To laugh at jokes with her heart slamming.
To be two people in one body.
She hadn’t known she could.
“Another over here, sweetheart.
And whatever you’re having.”
“I’m working, hon.”
“Suit yourself.
Working girls gotta eat too.”
“I ate.”
“Skinny as you are, I doubt it.” He laughed at his own joke and waved her off before she had to answer.
She stood, smoothed her shirt, crossed the floor with the smile she’d worn for fourteen months.
Poured it, made change, laughed at something she didn’t hear, and came back.
Lena caught her eye from across the room and gave the smallest nod.
The network of silence was widening.
Could she trust it?
Fourteen months of solitary terror had taught her one thing.
Trust was how you died.
The wire was in her purse because she’d trusted the wrong person once, a girlfriend with an arrest record and a deal to offer.
She’d been wearing it before she understood what wearing it meant.
The Bureau had promised protection, a clean exit, a new life.
They hadn’t mentioned the fourteen months.
She thought about Chris.
Quieter lately.
Steadier.
More present.
He looked at her now like he was seeing something he’d missed before.
He’d stopped drinking.
Stopped using.
Stopped being the man she’d been terrified of losing to an overdose.
She’d noticed.
Of course she’d noticed.
She just hadn’t known how to name it.
But Chris knew.
Chris had written a note.
She pulled it out under the table where no one could see and read it once more.
I know.
Don’t say anything.
You are not alone.
The words blurred.
She blinked hard, folded it, tucked it back against her skin.
Lena stopped at the edge of the booth and set the tray down instead of passing.
“You okay, honey?”
“Fine.” The mask snapped up.
“Just tired.”
“You keep saying tired like it’s a whole answer.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Not from you it isn’t.
You don’t get tired.
You get careful.”
“Same thing, some nights.”
“Not the same thing at all, honey.
Not the way you say it.” Lena leaned a hip against the booth, in no hurry.
“I been doing this floor twenty years.
I know tired.
I know scared.
I know something-happened-and-I-can’t-say-it.
You’re wearing the third one tonight.”
“Maybe I’m just tired, Lena.”
“Maybe.” Lena didn’t push it further.
She never did.
That was the thing about her, the reason people told her things without meaning to.
“Long week.” Lena held her eyes a beat past necessary.
“You get to a certain age, you stop asking people what’s wrong.
You just tell ’em it gets better and let ’em decide whether to believe you.”
“Does it?”
“Sometimes.
Depends who’s in your corner.” Lena picked the tray back up.
“You got somebody?”
“I think I do.”
“Good.
Hold onto that.”
“Trying to.”
“Then it gets better.”
“You believe that?”
“Doesn’t matter if I believe it.
Matters if you do.”
“That’s a cop-out.”
“That’s twenty years of tending bar.
Same thing, different apron.
You want gospel, go find a priest.” Lena moved off toward the bar.
“Drink your water.
Long night coming.”
“It always is.”
“That’s the job, honey.”
Adriana stood and walked out onto the floor.
The night was ahead of her.
The wire was in her purse.
And someone else knew.
The weight in her chest had shifted a fraction, not enough to call hope, enough to breathe.
She touched the note one more time, smiled at the first man who looked her way, and became the person everyone expected.
Later, at home, she lay in bed and watched Chris sleep.
His face was loose in a way she hadn’t seen in years.
The tension that used to live in his jaw was gone.
The pacing at three in the morning had stopped.
He was different.
She’d been telling the truth at dinner.
Softer.
More here.
She didn’t know what had changed him.
She only knew the change had brought her a note, and the note a thread of hope, and the thread was the first real thing she’d held in fourteen months.
She reached out and touched his face in the dark.
He stirred, didn’t wake.
She’d spent so many old nights watching him sleep, wondering if he’d wake up sick or angry or gone.
Now she watched him and felt something she’d nearly forgotten how to name.
Safety.
Not the safety of being protected.
The safety of being known.
Someone else knew what she carried.
Someone else was carrying it too.
She turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
She didn’t know what came next, didn’t know if the plan would work.
But tomorrow she’d get up, put on the wire, go to work, and wait for the next note.
That was more than she’d had yesterday.
Trust was the only currency left with any value, and she’d decided to spend it.
The note lay warm against her skin.
She held onto it like a hand in the dark and let it carry her down.
When she woke, the first thing she did was reach for the note.
Still there, folded small against her skin.
She smiled, a real one, the first that had come easy in months, and got up to face another day of wearing a wire.
The strap went on without thinking now.
Her body remembered the trick of concealment, the small shift of the shoulders that kept the wire off the fabric of her shirt.
In the mirror she looked like herself.
The wire invisible.
The fear invisible.
Two years ago she’d never have believed she could carry both and still look like a woman who’d never carried anything heavier than a purse.
hey — quick one before you close the tab.
if the cliffhanger is killing you, the future already exists.
you just need a ticket through.
every chapter the second i finish writing it.
see you in the next loop.
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P.S.
— in a parallel timeline, the rest of this story runs completely free on unwrittenrealm.com.
just saying.
that timeline also has more chapters.